


Unmoored

by paperiuni



Series: Unwritten: Codas & Interludes [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lightwood Family, Post-Episode: s03e04: Thy Soul Instructed, Sibling Bonding, Vignette, shadow world politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: Alec runs into the brunt of Izzy’s emotions after the vampire hunt, and the siblings find some clarity in each other. (A coda for 3.04.)





	Unmoored

**Author's Note:**

> **Content Note** : The _yin fen_ addiction storyline is discussed.

Izzy's report of last night's vampire hunt lands in Alec's email at 2 PM, and he's skimmed halfway through her crisp, clipped sentences when the odd thing about the situation strikes him. She never showed up at his door for their usual debrief.

They've fallen into the habit as if to offset that they rarely go on missions together anymore. She'll come in and pull a chair next to his, or they'll sprawl on the office couch and talk business for all of ten minutes before devolving into Institute gossip or Alec's erudite opinions on the latest restaurant he and Magnus checked off their list. _Erudite_ is Izzy's word, tossed at him with loving mockery. He lets her get away with it.

She recounts the mission in bare detail. Suddenly the gaps between the phrases signal more than wanting to be done with the ever-repetitive paperwork part.

Alec ducks into Lindsay's office next door to say he'll be back in an hour, and goes in search of his absent sister. Like he's got any siblings left to misplace. Max is with their father, and though Alec's blood boils at the thought, that's the stablest place for Max in the current circumstances. And Jace—Jace is buried, curled up into himself, walled behind fear and anger that cut Alec like razor wire if he doesn't keep his distance.

He's hidden parts of himself from Jace all his life. He never quite figured how it'd feel to have their places reversed.

After last night, Izzy could well have her own reasons to withdraw. To respect her, he's taken her at her word that she's ready to deal with any assignment again, including those that involve vampires. He can't stand between her and her job.

The armory's empty except for the guard on duty, who hasn't seen her. The training hall's full of shouting and stumbling rookies, the most alert of whom startle to attention as Alec sticks his head in. He beats a snappy retreat before they get any ideas of saluting.

He's nearly to the living quarters when his phone announces a message, and he feels a wry, helpless smile tug at his mouth. _This morning's consultation: straight into the Clients from Hell pile, but am free at last. Have you had lunch?_ Alec does appreciate that Magnus couches his worry in repartee. That he has a safe harbor from the brewing storm. It's something of a novel feeling, when he can be ironic about it—and when he can't, it's the one thing that keeps him afloat.

 _Thank you for worrying about me._ He doesn't write that. Nor _I'm fine_ —which would be a mild lie at best—nor _I love you_ , though that's one of the few truths he can lean on right now.

 _I'm gonna eat with Izzy, but if you're free for dinner that can be arranged._ There, that's got about the same amount of gentle cheek as Magnus's message. Alec decides on this plan on the spot, but it's not a bad idea. If he can find Izzy, a moment out of the Institute will do them both good.

A particularly lengthy minute later: _I might just be. I'll see you at 8?_

Alec must be paranoid if he's staring at a simple confirmation from his boyfriend and getting stuck on that Magnus didn't mention _dear Isabelle_ in any way. He texts back a final note when there's a clatter from a bedroom ahead, followed by a badly muffled scream.

"Izzy?" Her door isn't locked, so Alec barges in on dubious older brother privilege.

She's crouched on the floor in her sleepwear, her hair in a hasty ponytail, surrounded by a heap of clothes tumbled from her open wardrobe. Hangers stick out at askew angles. " _What_ , Alec?" Her voice sounds watery, her eyes fixed on the apparent calamity on her floor.

"You kinda shouted."

"Yes, I did, because the _stupid_ rack keeps falling out of my _stupid_ wardrobe and would it be too much to ask that I could do _one_ thing I don't screw up—" 

There's an old fixture that keeps coming undone, she's mentioned it more than once. It's just been one of those small annoyances that get forgotten when actual disasters are pouring in through all available apertures.

A small annoyance that'll tip you over the edge when your last reserves are exhausted.

His poised, blithe sister curls tight around the noisy, ugly sob that shakes its way up her throat. Alec doesn't ask. He doesn't say anything, just kneels and gathers her into his arms. She doesn't resist, though he's braced to let her go if she needs space more than she wants comfort, but she only buries her head into his shirt and cries.

Alec doesn't understand. He has a guess or a dozen, each more dire than the last given where the mission took her last night. For the moment he's not required to understand: Izzy needs him to hold her, and the rest of everything can wait.

Some things are still simple.

"Okay," she finally mumbles, against the tear-smudged fabric. "Okay, weeping over. Give me a second."

He picks up her jackets and dresses and jury-rigs the rack into working order while she vanishes into her bathroom. She's got her face mostly on when she opens the door, dressed, and he wonders for whose benefit those shielding layers are. She's so like Magnus in some ways, or Magnus is like her. Magnus, who conspicuously didn't send his habitual regards to her.

"Wanna talk about it?" Alec offers, not taking a seat until she pats the made bed next to her. Then he folds down to sit, turning to her straight-backed figure, opening his posture more than she does her own.

"Off the record?"

"Did I leave my Head of the Institute hat on?" He makes a face at her, counts it a victory when her shoulders hitch with a laugh. "Obviously off the record, you dork."

"Look who's talking."

"Seriously though." Alec might not be able to take it if she collapses on him, too. She's been doing so much better, finding her way back to herself. He relies on her, too, maybe too much. "Did something happen on the mission?"

Her nose wrinkles as she fights her own expression. "I left a lot out of that report."

"I could tell." It's no secret. He thought there weren't many secrets between him and Izzy.

"It wasn't just a rogue vampire." She chews her lip, flecks of lipstick catching in her teeth. "Alec—I need you to promise this is going to stay between us. Please?"

In a professional capacity, he's lied about Luke and his attempt to kill Valentine in the holding cell. After the Soul-Sword, he's never lying to Magnus again. Jace and Clary are keeping something from him that drags behind both of them like a stubborn shadow, and neither will shed a light on it. He can _hope_ whatever Izzy needs him to keep quiet will fall into the first of these three cases.

Something that he can brush under the rug and smooth over without anybody tripping on it the next day. That'd be nice. And if it's about her recovery—he can handle that. They can all help with that. She has him, she has Clary, she has Mom. It'll be okay.

"Yeah," he says, because Izzy is asking—begging—him to. "Of course."

"I saw Raphael," she says then, toneless.

"Yeah," he repeats, though there's about five implications in that sentence that could send every protective instinct he has into overdrive. "Clary said. Wait, is there a joint-effort cover story here?"

"No. We did find him on the roof. But I—I had a feeling something was off, and I sent Clary back to report to you, and I went to the DuMort—"

It comes pouring out of her, a hiccuping rush of words: how she caught Raphael red-handed, the evidence of what he'd done, and she doesn't stop to describe how she felt over that, but Alec can read it in her scrunched expression. Alec's not sure that he _likes_ Raphael Santiago, but he's used to him being the solid pragmatist in the cabinet, a stanchion to keep the sometimes heated discussion grounded in facts. He's been able to somewhat ignore the twisted history between Izzy and Raphael. To look past it, only now it's no longer a thing of the past.

And Raphael's sister is dead. Alec should, and does, feel a prick of sympathy for that. And then his own sister comes to the end of her story with a half-sobbed, "So I told him to leave the city. Before dawn tomorrow."

That lashes at him. "What?"

Izzy swallows. Her voice is small. "I don't know if he's leaving. I was so—so hurt, not even angry, it just tore me apart that he could _do_ that, and I went for the only thing I could hurt him back with."

In general, Alec believes himself good at compartmentalizing. It's a life skill, really, in his circumstances. He's having a little trouble taking apart that one of his most trusted soldiers—who happens to be his baby sister—wielded the authority of the Clave as a bludgeon, without asking him—as the Head of the Institute—to try and banish the leader of the main vampire clan in New York from his jurisdiction. Because she has some complex but potent feelings for said vampire, who returns her feelings, while they're still recovering from an addiction-fueled episode between the two of them.

That, he understands, cold and lucid, explains Magnus's lack of a comment. It might not be a calm sort of dinner date tonight.

"That's not your call to make, Iz," he says. "It's mine."

Which is true in the bald, uncaring letter of the Law: the Accords endow the Head of an Institute with the power to punish Downworlders who kill or threaten ordinary people. No rank-and-file Shadowhunter holds that right.

"I _know_ ," she whispers. "I know you wouldn't—you wouldn't be cruel about it. You covered for Luke. You'd let him off easy, because of Magnus, or maybe because of me. I stood there and I knew he'd hurt that girl, like the Clave hurts Downworlders, like Aldertree hurt _him_."

That was an interesting—which is to say, horrifying—afternoon in Alec's first week in charge: dismantling the sophisticated torture devices Aldertree had had installed in the office. A thing justified under the Law.

"I always thought he was better than me." Izzy straightens her slouch. He can almost see their mother's hand on her back, directing her. "I don't mean that in a condescending way. He just was. Strong and noble. He had a good heart under that cynical front."

 _Had_ , or _has_? Alec tries not to get trapped in the circle of _He fed on you for god knows how long_ , because it'll cloud his ability to think about this rationally. It's a little eerie how easy it'd be to paste her description of Raphael onto his own thoughts of Magnus; he knows how that mix of love and admiration feels, and how you can suddenly slip on it. How it can stop you from viewing its subject as an equal.

"You wanted him gone so you wouldn't have to deal with—how much you hurt." Not that Alec's ever wanted that with Magnus. The thought makes him a little sick. But he recognizes the risk.

She nods, a miserable strain in her voice. "I can't call him. I don't know if he's going but I can't stand to find out."

There's a number of things Alec has to do. He has to keep the Institute running, day to day, somehow rocking the boat enough that horrid old practices fall off but not so much that the Clave will storm in to overturn it entirely. He has to—he gets to—meet Magnus for dinner knowing his sister has issued an ultimatum, if a rattletrap one, to Magnus's adoptive son.

That's the thing that worries him the least. They'll talk it through. He dares to trust in that.

And he has to deal with the diplomatic crisis that Izzy may have caused, if Raphael really is leaving. After Camille's rocky, ruthless days, Raphael's steadied the Night Children of New York like few clan leaders before him. Izzy's heartbreak is not worth the vampires regressing into recklessly turning mundanes and leaving nests of wild fledglings to fend for themselves.

What Izzy's heartbreak is worth is Alec taking that hour, and maybe a couple more, to be with her.

He wraps an arm around her and draws her close, his chin on top of her head just because he can. She leans into him. "I'm sorry. This is a horrible mess, and it's my fault."

"It might be, and it kinda is, respectively," he says, then takes a deep breath. It is what it is. He can work with it. "I dunno about you, but I could use something to eat. That Greek place you like, maybe?"

A degree of tension leaves her shoulders. "If that's a really transparent attempt to cheer me up, it's working."

"Maybe. Or maybe I just don't wanna put my Head of the Institute hat back on yet."

They sit a while longer, brother and sister, on the edge of her bed, before venturing out to look for lunch.


End file.
